The Project Gutenberg EBook of The End of Her Honeymoon, by Marie Belloc LowndesCopyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloadingor redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do notchange or edit the header without written permission.Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of thisfile. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can alsofind out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts****eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971*******These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****Title: The End of Her HoneymoonAuthor: Marie Belloc LowndesRelease Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9635] [This file was first posted on October 11, 2003]Edition: 10Language: English*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE END OF HER HONEYMOON ***E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, David Kline, and Project Gutenberg Distributed ProofreadersThe End of Her HoneymoonByMrs. Belloc LowndesAuthor of "The Uttermost Farthing," "The Chink in the Armour," etc., etc.1913CHAPTER I"Cocher? l'Hôtel Saint Ange, Rue Saint Ange!"The ...
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**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla
Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By
Computers, Since 1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands
of Volunteers!*****Title: The End of Her Honeymoon
Author: Marie Belloc Lowndes
Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9635] [This
file was first posted on October 11, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK, THE END OF HER HONEYMOON ***
E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, David Kline, and
Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
The End of Her Honeymoon
By
Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
Author of "The Uttermost Farthing," "The Chink in
the Armour," etc., etc.1913
CHAPTER I
"Cocher? l'Hôtel Saint Ange, Rue Saint Ange!"
The voice of John Dampier, Nancy's three-weeks
bridegroom, rang out strongly, joyously, on this the
last evening of their honeymoon. And before the
lightly hung open carriage had time to move,
Dampier added something quickly, at which both
he and the driver laughed in unison.
Nancy crept nearer to her husband. It was
tiresome that she knew so little
French.
"I'm telling the man we're not in any hurry, and that
he can take us round by the Boulevards. I won't
have you seeing Paris from an ugly angle the first
time—darling!""But Jack? It's nearly midnight! Surely there'll be
nothing to see on the
Boulevards now?"
"Won't there? You wait and see—Paris never goes
to sleep!"
And then—Nancy remembered it long, long
afterwards—something very odd and disconcerting
happened in the big station yard of the Gare de
Lyon. The horse stopped—stopped dead. If it
hadn't been that the bridegroom's arm enclosed
her slender, rounded waist, the bride might have
been thrown out.
The cabman stood up in his seat and gave his
horse a vicious blow across the back.
"Oh, Jack!" Nancy shrank and hid her face in her
husband's arm. "Don't let him do that! I can't bear
it!"
Dampier shouted out something roughly, angrily,
and the man jumped off the box, and taking hold of
the rein gave it a sharp pull. He led his unwilling
horse through the big iron gates, and then the little
open carriage rolled on smoothly.
How enchanting to be driving under the stars in the
city which hails in every artist—Jack Dampier was
an artist—a beloved son!
In the clear June atmosphere, under the great arc-In the clear June atmosphere, under the great arc-
lamps which seemed suspended in the mild
lambent air, the branches of the trees lining the
Boulevards showed brightly, delicately green; and
the tints of the dresses worn by the women walking
up and down outside the cafés and still brilliantly
lighted shops mingled luminously, as on a magic
palette.
Nancy withdrew herself gently from her husband's
arm. It seemed to her that every one in that merry,
slowly moving crowd on either side must see that
he was holding her to him. She was a shy,
sensitive little creature, this three-weeks-old bride,
whose honeymoon was now about to merge into
happy every-day life.
Dampier divined something of what she was
feeling. He put out his hand and clasped hers. "Silly
sweetheart," he whispered. "All these merry,
chattering people are far too full of themselves to
be thinking of us!"
As she made no answer, bewildered, a little
oppressed by the brilliance, the strangeness of
everything about them, he added a little anxiously,
"Darling, are you tired? Would you rather go
straight to the hotel?"
But pressing closer to him, Nancy shook her head.
"No, no, Jack! I'm not a bit tired. It was you who
were tired to-day, not I!""I didn't feel well in the train, 'tis true. But now that
I'm in Paris I could stay out all night! I suppose
you've never read George Moore's description of
this very drive we're taking, little girl?"
And again Nancy shook her head, and smiled in
the darkness. In the world where she had lived her
short life, in the comfortable, unimaginative world in
which Nancy Tremain, the delightfully pretty, fairly
well-dowered, orphan, had drifted about since she
had been "grown-up," no one had ever heard of
George Moore.
Strange, even in some ways amazing, their
marriage—hers and Jack Dampier's—had been!
He, the clever, devil-may-care artist,
unconventional in all his ways, very much a
Bohemian, knowing little of his native country,
England, for he had lived all his youth and working
life in France—and she, in everything, save an
instinctive love of beauty, which, oddly yet naturally
enough, only betrayed itself in her dress, the exact
opposite!
A commission from an English country gentleman
who had fancied a portrait shown by Dampier in
the Salon, had brought the artist, rather reluctantly,
across the Channel, and an accident—sometimes
it made them both shiver to realise how slight an
accident—had led to their first and decisive
meeting.Nancy Tremain had been brought over to tea, one
cold, snowy afternoon, at the house where
Dampier was painting. She had been dressed all in
grey, and the graceful velvet gown and furry cap-
like toque had made her look, in his eyes, like an
exquisite Eighteenth Century pastel.
One glance—so Dampier had often since assured
her and she never grew tired of hearing it—had
been enough. They had scarcely spoken the one to
the other, but he had found out her name, and,
writing, cajoled her into seeing him again. Very
soon he had captured her in the good old way, as
women—or so men like to think—prefer to be
wooed, by right of conquest.
There had been no one to say them nay, no one to
comment unkindly over so strange and sudden a
betrothal. On the contrary, Nancy's considerable
circle of acquaintances had smilingly approved.
All the world loves a masterful lover, and Nancy
Tremain was far too pretty, far too singular and
charming, to become engaged in the course of
nature to some commonplace young man. This
big, ugly, clever, amusing artist was just the
contrast which was needed for romance.
And he seemed by his own account to be making a
very good income, too! Yet, artists being such
eccentric, extravagant fellows, doubtless Nancy's
modest little fortune would come in useful—sothose about them argued carelessly.
Then one of her acquaintances, a thought more
good-natured than the rest, arranged that lovely,
happy Nancy should be married from a pleasant
country house, in a dear little country church.
Braving superstition, the wedding took place in the
last week of May, and bride and bridegroom had
gone to Italy—though, to be sure, it was rather late
for Italy—for three happy weeks.
Now they were about to settle down in Dampier's
Paris studio.
Unluckily it was an Exhibition Year, one of those
years, that is, which, hateful as they may be to
your true Parisian, pour steady streams of gold into
the pockets of fortunate hotel and shop keepers,
and which bring a great many foreigners to Paris
who otherwise might never have come. Quite a
number of such comfortable English folk were now
looking forward to going and seeing Nancy
Dampier in her new home—of which the very
address was quaint and unusual, for Dampier's
studio was situated Impasse des Nonnes.
They were now speeding under and across the
vast embracing shadow of the Opera House. And
again Dampier slipped his arm round his young
wife. It seemed to this happy man as if Paris to-
night had put on her gala dress to welcome him,
devout lover and maker of beauty, back to herbosom.
"Isn't it pleasant to think," he whispered, "that Paris
is the more beautiful because you now are in it and
of it, Nancy?"
And Nancy smiled, well pleased at the fantastic
compliment.
She pressed more closely to him.
"I wish—I wish—" and then she stopped, for she
was unselfish, shy of expressing her wishes, but
that made Dampier ever the more eager to hear,
and, if possible, to gratify them.
"What is it that you wish, dear heart?" he asked.
"I wish, Jack, that we were going straight home to
the studio now—instead of to an hotel."
"We'll get in very soon," he answered quickly.
"Believe me, darling, you wouldn't like going in
before everything is ready for you. Mère Bideau
has her good points, but she could never make the
place look as I want it to look when you first see it.
I'll get up early to-morrow morning and go and see
to it all. I wouldn't for the world you saw our home
as it must look now—the poor little living rooms
dusty and shabby, and our boxes sitting sadly in
the middle of the studio itself!"
They had sent their heavy luggage on from